Ghost Road Blues pd-1

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Now we come to the bad news. She is physically unharmed. In fact, she is the only one that really went through this relatively unscathed. Some minor bruises from rough handling and from a few hard slaps, but none of the brutal bashing the others experienced. Nevertheless, her trauma is even deeper and more dangerous than that of Val Guthrie. She was nearly raped, but in her own mind she actually was raped. Or at least violated beyond her capacity to endure. You have to understand, gentlemen, that this is a very old-fashioned, very modest woman. Probably a little naive, too, one of those people who just isn’t prepared for this kind of visit to the real world. Her kind isn’t made for a night in the swamps with all the alligators. Will she snap out of it? Probably yes. In most ways, yes, but can she put the event behind her and not let it haunt her and warp her like it does to so many of the innocent ones?” He just shook his head. “I don’t know, fellows. I’m a doctor, not a shrink. And she is going to need a very good shrink.”

  “So’s her husband,” said LaMastra. “I had a talk with him, or tried to, but he just keeps saying that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s on some kind of denial trip, thinks his father’s death is his fault somehow. He’s tearing himself to pieces because, while Ruger was ripping his wife’s clothes off and running his hands all over her, all young Mr. Guthrie could do was sit and watch and scream.”

  Weinstock nodded. “Yeah, Ruger hurt him by making him watch. If the rape had actually happened, with Mark watching and unable to do anything…well, I don’t even want to speculate.”

  LaMastra made a sour face. “I’ve seen cases like that. Poor bastard’s held down by one guy with a knife or gun or whatever, and has to watch the other guys take turns with his wife or girlfriend. What man could take that?”

  “I sure as hell couldn’t,” Weinstock said grimly.

  The room grew quiet as the men stared down at the floor and down at the dusty bottoms of their hearts, thinking of loved ones, trying to imagine what Mark Guthrie had felt, putting themselves in his place. It was a terrifying and sickening thought, as was the speculation, however distorted, of what it must have felt like for Connie Guthrie as well. It was harder for these men to relate to her trauma and her pain, but even from a distance, the feelings burned holes in each of them.

  Gus blew out his cheeks. “Well, if that is the bad news, I just can’t wait to hear what the really bad news is.”

  Weinstock sipped his coffee and considered the darkly rippling liquid for a long five seconds. “I just finished the postmortem on our friend Tony Macchio.” He heaved a long sigh. “You know, fellows, I never signed up to do this kind of shit. I’m essentially a country doctor. My patients are upscale suburbanites who get expensive conditions and rare and glamorous diseases. When they die, they die in bed of very old age, or they have heart attacks on the back nine, two under par, and still smiling when they’re wheeled into the morgue. But this crap…this body you brought me last night…ahh, I just don’t know. I mean, God knows I’ve been doing this long enough not to be squeamish from blood. I’ve pieced together high school kids after the paramedics peeled them out of wrecked Lexuses. That I can deal with, but this…man, this is nightmare stuff, you know?”

  “We all saw the corpse, Saul,” said Terry quietly. “We know.”

  “No,” Weinstock said emphatically, setting down his coffee cup with a thump. “No, you don’t know. You don’t even know the half of it.” He looked at them each for a moment, then said, “For starters, I pulled two slugs out of his abdomen, both of different calibers. One was a nine millimeter and the second bullet wound was a thirty-two caliber — delivered hours later from comparisons of bruising and clotting, but almost in the same spot.”

  “He was shot at least once during the drug buy, in Philly,” said Ferro. “That was probably the nine, and Ruger has a thirty-two caliber belly gun. Raven Arms automatic.”

  “Okay. The first shot was from a distance, the hole was clean and there were no powder burns, no tattooing, just a clean hole. But the other was a classic near-contact entry wound, possibly even on-contact, fired through clothes. The entry wound had a clear burn-rim, so your boy Ruger must have jammed that thirty-two-caliber pistol into his gut and popped him. Neither, gentlemen, was a fatal wound, and Mr. Macchio would have been far better off if it had been, but no. From the amount of bruising and so on I can make a good guess that he lived another half hour, maybe a little longer, and it’s what happened in that half hour that scares the hell out of me.”

  “We know he was tortured, Dr. Weinstock,” said Ferro.

  Weinstock tilted his head to one side. “Is torture the right word for it, I wonder? Torture almost seems, I don’t know, too clean a word for what happened. The perpetrator inserted something into Macchio’s two bullet wounds, possibly his own fingers, and literally tore the front of his stomach out. Then he pulled his intestines out, unraveling them like a tangled rope. Next, he…uh…bit the skin around the wound.”

  “Bit?” Terry said softly, his face paling, and suddenly he was back thirty years and something big and powerful was clawing at him, biting his shoulder…. He had to shake himself to break free of the memory and stay focused.

  “Bit. Chewed. Ate! We found clear impressions of teeth marks all around the wound. He bit the fingers, actually chewing off the man’s fingertips. He bit his face, tearing off most of the nose, the lips, the eyebrows, the ears…” The doctor’s eyes were glassy. “You all saw the dismembered hands? Well, at first we thought they had been hacked off crudely, perhaps with a small knife or dull hatchet, but when we examined the edges of the bones, we discovered that the hands had been bitten off, the muscle and bone chewed clean through by very strong, very sharp teeth.”

  “Holy shit,” breathed Gus.

  “We were able to lift saliva from the wounds and the lab is doing a workup on it now. There were bite marks on other parts of the body as well. Thighs, groin, neck, and, uh, so on. If you ever catch this guy I can guarantee you a perfect set of dental impressions.”

  Ferro’s face was as drawn, and he mumbled, “Uh, well, thank you for your report.”

  “There’s more,” Weinstock said quietly.

  “More?”

  “Yeah. From the amount of bleeding and the remaining lividity, I’ve been able to determine that somehow — and don’t ask me how — Tony Macchio was alive for almost all of this.” They all just stared at him. “So the actual cause of death was when this sick, murderous son of a bitch reached up into Macchio’s body and literally tore his heart out of his chest.”

  The words battered them all into silence. After a while, Ferro asked quietly, “Is that even possible? To tear a man’s heart out?”

  Weinstock looked at him. “If you had asked me that question this morning, I’d have laughed at you. The heart is pretty securely anchored in the chest. It has to be to do what it does. To actually rip it loose from all that internal structure…well, that’s a new one on me. Now, here’s one last little tidbit for you gentlemen.” They tensed, almost cringing, waiting. “Whoever did this…took the heart with him.”

  (4)

  The TV in Crow’s room didn’t work and he’d whiled away some of the interminable evening reading a seven-month-old copy of Good Housekeeping that a nurse had given him, it being the only thing on hand. Val was still sedated, they said, and couldn’t have visitors. There was a police guard outside his room, and that kept traffic to a crawl, but by ten o’clock he would have been ready to invite Ruger and his cronies in for a few hands of old maid just to keep from screaming. Partly it was the utter boredom — and Crow was never one of those types who could be quiet and alone and still for more than five minutes. He always had to have music playing, preferably very loud blues or some avante-garde stuff, like Tom Waits’s later albums, or the punk covers of Leonard Cohen. He loathed the echoes in his head, and the memories they provoked. And partly it was a gnawing need to see Val, to hold her hand, to be there for her the instant she woke up and had to face the towe
ring grief.

  On top of all that, he believed that at that moment he would have sold his soul to the devil for a drink. Or, maybe for a whole lot of drinks. He brooded over it for a while, wondering if maybe he should call his AA sponsor tomorrow. The ache for a drink was getting stronger the longer this craziness went on.

  Even with those thoughts, the flaccid writing of the article on how to make centerpieces for the Easter dinner table worked on him like a dose of codeine and he drifted off. His eyelids slid down, his chin dropped onto his chest, and he began to snore like a tired bear as the shadows outside the hospital windows grew thicker and the wheel of night turned slowly.

  He felt the hand on his shoulder. Light, tentative, gentle. A ghost of a touch, and in his sleep he smiled, knowing that the touch was Val’s. Crow was way down in the darkness and he moved upward against the current of his dreams, rising toward the touch, wanting to break the surface of sleep so he could open his eyes and see her. He rose, rose…

  The hand touching his arm splayed its fingers and wrapped around his biceps. Firm, strong.

  Crow, still more asleep than awake, felt a pang. What was wrong? Was Val hurt?

  He moved faster through his dreams, upward to where she waited.

  Then the grip changed again. The fingers flexed, contracted, tightened.

  Pain instantly shot through Crow’s bruised arms and he sprang awake, his eyes snapped wide, gasping and calling out: “Val!”

  And he stared straight into the black reptilian eyes of Karl Ruger!

  The sight of the killer wrenched Crow’s mind into disjointed shapes. It was impossible. He couldn’t be here!

  Ruger’s face was as white as moonlight and he was smiling a thin-lipped smile. Crow opened his mouth to yell, to call for the cop outside the door, but Ruger’s other hand shot out and clamped like an icy vise around Crow’s throat.

  “Shhhhhh!” he said, leaning close to Crow to whisper. “You make a sound, hero, and I’ll rip your fucking throat out. You know I can do it, too…don’t you?”

  The hands on his arm and throat were immensely powerful and as cold as death. Crow gripped the wrist of the hand holding his throat, but it was like clapping onto an iron bar. The cold flesh didn’t yield at all and the tendons and muscles beneath were like bridge cables.

  Ruger leaned forward and pressed Crow back against his pillow, still leaning close so that his mouth was inches away. When he smiled Crow could see the jagged line of broken teeth — the teeth he’d kicked out after he’d driven Ruger headfirst into Missy’s fender. The man’s lips were so red they looked painted and his skin was colorless and smeared with drops of black muck. The worst part was Ruger’s breath…he reeked. Each exhale was like a damp wind blowing from a slaughterhouse. He smelled of spoiled meat and blood and feces.

  “Don’t worry, stud,” Ruger whispered in his slithery voice. “It ain’t your time yet. Soon, mind you…but not now. I got better plans for you.” He chuckled. “No…because of you I lost everything. My money, my dope, and those two sweet sluts at that farmhouse. Was that broken-nosed bitch yours? Val? Was she yours?” He shook Crow by the throat, squeezing harder. Black poppies bloomed in Crow’s vision. “Listen to me now. You took everything away from me, so I’m going to return the favor. Everything you care about, every-one you love, everything you own…I’m going to take it away from you. How’s that sound?” He squeezed harder and Crow started beating at the wrist, smashing at it with his balled-up fist — but it was like hammering on a tree limb. “And then…when you are stripped down to nothing, when everything you love is either dead or in ashes, then I’m going to come for you, motherfucker.”

  Crow struggled against the grip, but it was like fighting a statue. Ruger squeezed harder.

  “And the real fun part is…I’m going to fuck that broke-nosed bitch so bad that she’ll beg for the bullet.” He pumped his choking hand with each word: “She’ll…fucking…beg…for…it!”

  The pressure on Crow’s throat was robbing his arms and legs of strength. Blackness painted the edges of his vision and he could feel himself slipping away as the whole world became a huge black nothing.

  He felt the hand on his shoulder. Light, tentative, gentle — and he came awake screaming, flailing with hands and legs, tangled in sheets and IV tubes.

  Val screamed, too, and nearly fell off the side of the bed trying to avoid his swings.

  “Crow!” she cried, and the voice coming from her bruised throat was a horribly feminine approximation of Ruger’s icy whisper. “Crow — stop it!”

  Crow’s eyes snapped wide and sanity came back to him in a rush. This was no dream, no nightmare. It was real…and Val was there. Not Ruger…not some nightmare image of that murderous bastard…but Val. Right here. Warm and real.

  He sat up and took her in his arms and held her as tightly as his bruises and hers would allow. “Oh my God!” he sobbed as he gave her hair and face and lips a thousand small quick kisses. “Jesus, baby! I’m sorry!”

  Val hugged him back with her one good arm and for a long minute they just sat there, as connected to each other as will and closeness would allow. She wept against him, her tears hot on the side of his neck, and he wept, too. Her grief and pain were as real to him as if they were his own, and he did have his own. Henry Guthrie had been a far better father to him than his own had ever been and he still could not accept that he was gone. Just…gone. The loss of him left a huge hole through his chest.

  Finally, slowly, and by degrees, their tears slowed and stopped and they released the dreadful intensity of their embrace. Val sniffed, got tissues for them both from the box on the bedside table, and sat back a bit. She wore a thin pink robe over a hospital gown. Her hair was unwashed and her left arm was in a sling. An IV port was taped to her right hand and Crow suspected that she had removed the tube and slipped out of her room without permission.

  Val bent down and kissed Crow lightly on his torn lips and again on the forehead, closing her eyes and holding her soft lips there. He stroked her tangled hair and murmured soft words from their private language.

  At length, she sat back again and looked at him with tear-bright eyes. Her face was bruised and scratched and puffy from unearned tears. Fatigue and grief had carved new lines around her mouth, and her beautiful face had a pinched quality that broke Crow’s heart.

  “Daddy…” she began and then her face crumbled into a mask of overwhelming grief and she buried her head into his chest again.

  “I know, baby,” Crow murmured, “I know.” Tears burned in his eyes, crested, and broke, spilling down his face and into her hair.

  “Oh…Crow…why him?” She raised her head. “Why Daddy?”

  He just shook his head.

  “He never hurt anyone, Crow.” She screwed up her face and looked at him. “He made me run, he saved my life.”

  “I know.”

  “That man — that bastard! — he killed him because of me.”

  “Hey…hey, now. Let’s not start thinking like that. There is no way that any of this was your fault.”

  “Crow…I just ran away. I ran away and he shot Daddy…and I…and I—”

  “Shhhh, shhhh. Listen to me, baby, just listen, okay? Okay? That was an evil man. Not just some ordinary crook, but a truly evil man. You have no idea how terribly evil he was. He would have killed all of you once he got all the things he needed. Your dad probably guessed that, and he did what he felt was the right thing. He chased you off into the corn and he ran to draw Ruger’s fire. He died to keep you and Mark and Connie alive. And it worked, baby. Don’t blame yourself, because if you do you’ll make your dad’s death pointless. It wasn’t pointless, was it?”

  “N…no…” she said hesitantly.

  “Your dad was a great man, and I loved him, too, you know. It took a lot of courage and a lot of love for him to have done what he did. That’s what you’ve got to hang on to. He made a heroic decision. Few men could have taken such a step. Few men would have had the depth of
love for their children, or the sheer guts to do it. Are you listening?”

  She nodded, eyes wide, tears still streaming, but the look in her eyes had changed. It was a look of innocent childlike wonder that was not in any way childish.

  Crow kissed her hand again. “If you hadn’t run when you did, and as fast as you did, then Ruger would probably have killed both of you. Then he would have gone back to the house, attacked Connie, and killed her and Mark, too. But your dad screwed all that up. He helped you get away, and that left you free to go back and save Connie, and you kept that bastard busy long enough for me to arrive. Your dad bought us all that precious time.” He held her fingers to his lips as he spoke. “Your dad made his own choices, and he died a hero. That’s how you’ve got to think about it. Okay?”

  “Oh, Crow…” she said, and her voice broke, but this time she didn’t descend into sobs or hysterics. This time there was just a hint of her old strength in her eyes and in the line of her jaw. Crow prayed that more of that strength would come back.

  He touched the IV port taped to her wrist and smiled at her. “You snuck out of your room, you naughty girl.”

  “They wouldn’t let me see you…and I had bad dreams.” A wince of disgust flickered over her face. “Horrible dreams.”

  “Dreams?” he said hollowly, remembering the doozy of a nightmare he’d just had. “About…what?” he asked and immediately realized how stupid that question was.

  Val shivered. “You know…about him.” Then the sobs came again and she wept quietly, slow tears carving warm trails across the battleground bruises of her cheeks. Crow held her hand to his own cheek, and he wept with her.

  (5)

  Tow-Truck Eddie lay on his back and looked up at the plain, unbroken expanse of the ceiling above his bed. Sunlight slanted through the windows, bisecting his recumbent nakedness. He had not moved so much as a finger since he’d come home from the orientation for his new part-time job. He’d just walked in, gone right upstairs, stripped, and lay down on the bed. Only his massive chest moved, rising and falling with deep regularity. Lying there felt good. A mild late afternoon breeze was wafting in through the open windows, the cool air murmuring over his bare skin, puckering his flesh into goose bumps that felt vaguely erotic. He felt his nipples harden, and then his…